Giants, soft and thin: the arrival in Argentina of a famous chain of New York-style pizzas

The North American fast food chain Sbarro has announced that it will set up 35 stores in Argentina by 2025. The first, on Corrientes Avenue, between Libertad and Talcahuano, will open next Wednesday and will employ 45 people, the company and its local partner announced.

“The arrival in the country of one of the most emblematic international chains is a reflection of the confidence of foreign companies to generate work and settle in the country”, declared the Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, who received Rafael Pereira on Friday evening. Aragón, director of Sbarro Argentina, who presented the investment plan to the manager.

Pereira Aragón heads the local group Desarrolladora Gastronómica, specializing in the purchase and sale of businesses for gastronomy and hotels, two sectors strongly affected by the pandemic. The developer owns the Kentucky and Dandy chains and the traditional Güerrin pizzeria, as well as a few historic cafes, and has a presence in several South American countries.

Investment by location

The manager explained to Kulfas that each location involves an average investment of 15 million pesos. It is scheduled to open on the first Wednesday, August 25, and to open another before the end of the year. Next year 5 more will be opened, in 2023 8 more, in 2024 10 and in 2025 10 more, thus completing the sum of 35 stores in different regions of the country.

“Gastronomy is one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic. We are fully aware of the situation and the difficulties that the gastronomic sector is going through, which is gradually recovering, ”said Kulfas, who underlined the state support to the sector with credits and partial payment of salaries.

“Today we add this great news of the arrival in the country of one of the most emblematic international pizza chains like Sbarro”, he added, according to a cable from the Telam agency.

For its part, Pereira pointed out that “no North American channel had come to Argentina for 14 years. It is the first company to come back, and from the hand of an Argentinian company, that’s why it’s really such an important symbol. We operated that brand in the United States, in the city of Houston, and we brought it here ”.

It is not the first time

Sbarro announced in December 2017 its landing in Argentina, with the same strategic partner, Desarrolladora Gastronómica. Then they talked about the opening of 20 stores. Four months later, the fall in agribusiness production and foreign exchange inflow, due to a severe drought, and the abrupt closure of external credit, led to a sharp devaluation (and, later, in the ‘agreement with the IMF) which chills the spirits of the channel and its local partner.

In September 2020, as the most difficult phase of the quarantine was about to end, Sbarro and Desarrolladora Gastronómica again announced the opening of the first site. It would be in April 2021, at the same place where, for several months, we can see the poster and the logo of the North American channel., in Corrientes at 1200, between Libertad and Talcahuano, which will finally be inaugurated next Wednesday.

Sbarro was born in 1956 in Brooklyn, New York, by the hand of Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro, a couple of Neapolitan immigrants whose children promoted the channel in the United States and around the world with the franchise system.

These are places for pizza, pasta and quick meals, like the “Stromboli”, A few buns stuffed with vegetables, cheese, sausage, in various combinations. A distinctive aspect of Sbarro pizza is its size, larger diameter than typical Argentinian pizza, and therefore much larger portions, thin dough, but not very crisp, so that it can be folded without breaking. , to eat more comfortably on the go, “New York style”.

A matter of taste, which in past experiences has failed to defeat chains such as Pizza Hut and Domino’s, which are also exposed to intense local competition. Sbarrro will try to gain its space with a partner who knows the Argentinian gastronomic market well.

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